Valencia, Fla., Jul 5, 2006 / 12:00 am (CNA).-
Speaking at one of the conferences of the World Meeting of Families taking place this week in Spain, Cardinal Carlo Cafarra of Bologna, Italy, called for revitalization in the field of education in order to respond to the decision by the EU Parliament to force member states to make same-sex unions the equivalent of marriage.

According to the AVAN news agency, the cardinal called last January’s resolution by the EU Parliament, “a false conception of the secularism of the State,” and he criticized it for, “condemning as homophobic those states that do not embrace it.”

Cardinal Cafarra, who is also director of the John Paul II Institute on the Family, explained that the application of, “secularist principles,” in Europe means society would become, “a contract of egoisms, a negotiated coexistence of strangers.”

At the heart of this situation, the cardinal said, is a fundamental emergency in education. “An entire generation of adults does not know how to educate an entire generation of young people,” the cardinal said.

During his address, he underscored the Church’s mission to improve education both in the family and in society, and he said that the degradation of the human person can’t be stopped by just complaining, but rather by strengthening the education of persons who are truly free.

Cardinal Cafarra also criticized calls to change the terminology referring to procreation and marriage. Such terms, he said, “do not derive from any particular understanding of human sexuality: It’s no longer spouses, but ‘partners,’ no longer fathers and mothers, but ‘progenitor A’ and ‘progenitor B’.”